TBA Law Blog


Posted by: Stacey Shrader Joslin on Aug 22, 2024

U.S. District Judge Samuel Mays Jr. has dismissed a lawsuit against Shelby County Sheriff Floyd Bonner Jr. and Chief Jailer Kirk Fields over the October 2023 death of an inmate. The Daily Memphian reports that the suit had been filed in January by the family of Deion Byrd, an inmate at the Shelby County Jail who died after being stabbed by another inmate, Donnie Clay, while waiting for a court hearing at the Shelby County Criminal Justice Center. Clay has been charged with first-degree murder for the death. Mays found that Byrd’s parents failed to show that Bonner and Fields violated Byrd’s constitutional rights by failing to protect him from harm.